For those of you that do not know, the Academy usually releases short lists for some of their awards, listing the films currently in contention for those final nominations. Usually this process is done over time, and we eager film fans learn about the potential nominations for:

Best Documentary Feature

Best Foreign Language Feature

Best Original Song

Best Original Score

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Best Visual Effects

Best Documentary Short

Best Animated Short

Best Live-Action Short

For the first time, though, these short lists are all hitting the internet on one day: Monday, December 17th.

So on Monday, we will know the names of roughly 101 individual films vying for those nominations. There are pros and cons to each strategy. This way kind of muddles all the commentary for these potential winners and doesn’t give enough time for analysis of these lists and their films. For me, however, it kind of makes it like a holiday of its own. I’ll be going through the lists on Monday and checking to see which films I have screeners for and which ones I’ll have to hunt to find.

I like checking out as many potential Oscar films as possible before the big night so that my heart and soul are as much in the awards as possible.

So I’m excited for Monday. It’s like opening a gift up before the holiday. I’ll be paging through lists up to my eyeballs, and I’ll keep you posted as I uncover anything new.